Delays in setting up Finnish Red Cross field hospital in Kashmir
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Aftershocks, rain, and bad roads have caused delays in setting up a field hospital of the Finnish Red Cross in Kashmir. A Finnish Red Cross medical team arrived in the stricken area last week to set up the emergency facility in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Today, Monday, after numerous difficulties, the Finns are scheduled to begin setting up the hospital with the help of the Norwegian Red Cross. "We never expected this to take this long", says Raija Andersén, the group’s deputy planner by satellite phone on Sunday.
There are a total of 20 Finns in the area, from technicians to surgeons. Their mission is to set up a tent hospital in Muzaffarabad; the city’s largest hospital was completely destroyed in the earthquake of October 8th.
The tent hospital is to be raised on a cricket pitch, and will cover 10,000-15,000 square metres. It will have a 24-hour operating room, maternity ward, laboratory, and X-ray facilities.
Patients are to be flown to the hospital by helicopter from areas affected by the disaster.
The number of known victims in the earthquake shot up on Sunday, when officials reported that at least 40,000 people had been killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir alone.
The death toll in Pakistan is at least 13,283, and in India, 1,350 people were killed.
The Finnish aid workers are sleeping in tents in an area that lies 900 metres above sea level. Andersén says that the staff prefer the tents to houses because of the frequent aftershocks, some of which reach magnitudes of 5.5 on the Richter scale.
There were a number of factors behind the delay in setting up the hospital. At first, the cricket pitch reserved for the hospital was filled with Pakistani soldiers invovled in the aid effort. Later, heavy rain turned the area to mud, and drainage ditches had to be dug. On Sunday, a truckload of sand was stuck on a road somewhere, and the Norwegians had not yet shown up.
Once it is up, the Finnish and Norwegian facility will be the only proper hospital operating in the area.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 17.10.2005 - TODAY |
 Delays in setting up Finnish Red Cross field hospital in Kashmir
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